Chapter 1: Beer Pong & Body Shots

“Seriously, Preston? THIS is where you bring me? You can forget any ass tonight buster,” Sookie scoffed and threw herself violently back in the bucket seat.

Preston’s beat up Durango bounced over uneven sod and parked next to what looked like a concrete shack. “Oh, give it a chance. You’ll have a blast, hunny bun.”

“Call me hunny bun one more time. I dare you,” Sookie snarled as she reluctantly tumbled out of the truck.

Preston reached behind his seat and pulled out a bottle before turning to shove it into Sookie’s hands. She clasped the heavenly nectar to her chest and glared up at him.

“Calm your tits. And be nice. These are my friends,” he leaned down to claim a heated kiss before he led the way to a beat up metal door. Turning the knob, he had to throw his weight against the door to open it. Raucous laughter and the pounding of…Disturbed??…reached her ears. At least they had decent taste in music.

Sookie rolled her eyes. She trudged behind her friend and picked her way through the myriad of boxes piled in the outer area of the garage.

“PARDY!” a chorus of shouts greeted them as Preston forced open a swollen wooden door, falling through inelegantly. With a sigh, Sookie forced a smile onto her face, resigned to her night of redneck fun.

Sookie glanced around at the gathering quickly before her eyes rested on the humongous blonde guy taking a shot at beer pong. Swallowing hard, she had to force her eyes to keep moving through the crowd of people.

Well, maybe just one more look…

A chubby boy with a goofy smile on his face and weird pansy purple eyes sidled up to her, interrupting her perusal of the perfect male specimen in the corner. “And who might you be, purdy lady? And what the fuck are you doing with THIS motherfucker here?”

Preston had abandoned her to talk to the guys playing beer pong (two against one, she noted) and she glanced around again.

“Well, I’m Sookie first off. Who might you be?” She stuck her hand out politely. He glanced at her outstretched palm like it was a puzzle to solve world hunger. “Hum, not big on social graces, huh? Okay big guy, what’s your name?”

“THIS asshole is Quinn,” Preston laughed as he appeared out of nowhere and slapped the unfortunate boy on the back. Sookie raised her eyebrows. “Let me introduce you and then you can start having some fun.”

He took her hand and led her to the group of guys surrounding a dilapidated wooden plank mounted to the concrete wall. She thought that using the word “bar” might be extremely generous, even though they had the entire supply of liquor perched precariously on the opposite end from the beer pong game.

“Guys, this is Sookie. The girl I told you about,” Preston paused, shoulders back and chest out proudly as he let the guys get an eyeful of the beauty beside him. He gripped her tightly as he continued the introductions. “Sookie, this is Trey, Alcide, Chow, Claude and Eric.”

He had gestured in turn when he’d said the names. Trey turned out to be the huge man-boy with dark hair and a scruffy jawline who was built like a bodybuilder. Alcide could have been Trey’s more refined brother, with the dark hair and similar flannel shirts they wore. Chow was a smaller Asian guy with intricate tattoos on every visible inch of his slender body. Claude seemed like a preening peacock, from the top of his blonde highlighted hair right down to his immaculately manicured fingers. And Eric-that was the huge blonde mountain of a man that she’d admired when she first walked in. Once again her heart skipped a beat and she had to swallow the saliva that pooled in her mouth as she stared at his Adonis-like body.

Sookie smiled sweetly at each guy in turn, lingering a moment longer than necessary on Eric. “Nice to meet ya boys. Am I the only girl here?” She glanced around yet again, trying to figure out the dynamics of this backwater gathering.

“No, they’re in the bedroom.” Eric’s voice was soft and gruff at the same time. Sookie tried-and failed-to repress a shiver.

“Why-“ she paused, barking out a small quick cough to cover her stutter, “why aren’t they in here?”

“Because-“ Alcide cleared his throat, “they’re a bunch of gossipy, prissy bitches who have no idea how to have fun.”

Eric laughed while the Quinn and Chow gave him random whacks for dissing “their chicks”.

Sookie wandered into the small bedroom while the guys returned to their game of beer pong. Quickly scanning the room, her heart sank as she took in the immaculately made up girls. Seriously-who wears 3 pounds of makeup and knock-off Louboutins to a redneck party where they’ll be sitting on a lumpy mattress all night? A desktop computer hummed in the corner and the open door on the other side of the room showcased a tiny and horrendously filthy bathroom. THIS was where Preston expected her to hang all night?!?

“Hey there. I’m Sookie.” She waved a greeting to the 4 females around the small room. They were all holding-but not drinking-some bottled fruity bitch drink.

They also all wore identical sneers. “And who are you here with?”

“Uh, Preston brought me…” She trailed off, making her statement sound like a question.

“Oh, lucky you. He is one hot pocket!” A red head giggled and fanned herself dramatically while the other 3 barked out similar laughs.

A pretty brunette grabbed a bottle of whatever malt beverage they were pretending to drink and held it out to her. “Here ya go.”

Sookie stared at the bottle and wrinkled her nose. “Uh-thanks. I’m all set though.”

She held up her bottle of Jack Daniels that up until now had been dangling forgotten by her side. Sookie catalogued the looks of disgust on their faces and made a mental note to pound Pardloe into the dirt for this.

“Ew!” The collective squeal was ear splitting.

“How can you drink that?” The blonde that spoke cocked her head and bit her lip in what was probably supposed to be a sexy move.

After staring at the group for a moment with her mouth open in shock, she cleared her throat and shook her head slightly.

“Well, since introductions seem low on your list of to-dos and I don’t think my input would be welcome in any way, I think I’ll just go back out there,” she turned and tried to leave the room without making it seem like she was escaping. The stunned silence that followed her was another reason she was sure fleeing was the best choice for all involved.

The guys all looked at her questioningly when she stalked up to Preston and gave him a hearty punch in the shoulder.

“Banish me to the bitch room with those bimbos? You should know better by now, asshat.” She plopped herself down on a bar stool next to the group. “My balls are too big to hang with the girls. So I’m crashing your game. I play winner!”

She leaned back casually and dangled her brown leather flip flop from her toes. “Oh, and winner gets a body shot of their choice.”

The guys all looked skeptically at her.

“YOU are gonna play the winner? We don’t water down the drinks.” Eric laughed and Quinn slapped him a high five for the insult. Sookie shot off the bar stool, sauntering over to him seductively. Preston wiped his hand over his face and groaned while Eric kept laughing at this diminutive girl standing beside him, grinning coyly up at him.

“Bad move, dude.”

The grunt Eric let out as Sookie’s knee connected with his balls was epic and he launched himself forward, falling to his knees.

“My balls are bigger than yours too, Thor. Don’t go getting any ideas. You may play with your prissy little light beer or whatever the fuck you have here,” he cast his eyes up to hers as she curled her lip up in disgust. “But I play with shots. Jack Daniels. Poor little Asgardian wuss can’t hang?”

She arched her back and bent from the waist, giving him a magnificent view of her cleavage through her somewhat sheer tank top. She leaned close to him and let her lips linger beside his ear and despite the aching in his groin, Eric couldn’t repress the tingle of pain tinged desire that shot through him.

“Next time you insult me, I won’t be so nice.” She straightened up and flounced back to her seat, smiling widely as the rest of the guys gaped at her in fear. Preston returned to her side and gave her a light punch on the shoulder.”I TOLD you to be nice.”

“So what, I have to be nice and these fuckwads can be douches to me? Fuck that. You know how I am. You’re the one who wanted me to hang with your friends, so you deal with the fallout, shithead.” Sookie quickly unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a swig, savoring the burn of whiskey as she swallowed. “Come on, I’ll even catch up.”

Tilting her head back and letting the liquor flow straight down her throat, she gulped a third of the bottle before pulling back, gasping slightly. Trey recovered first. He held out a hand to Eric and helped him up before approaching Sookie’s side.

Playfully he leaned his head on her shoulder and made googly eyes at her. “I like you.”

Eric coughed out a “traitor!” as he tried to pretend his balls weren’t aching as he stood up straight.

Sookie laughed heartily and pushed him gently away. Alcide made a grab for her bottle, only to be whacked on the head and snarled at.

“Come on pussies! Finish up! I wanna play!”

“Did you like flunk kindergarten or something? Sharing is caring, Sweetcheeks!” Alcide’s pout made everyone laugh as Sookie cast a withering glance his way.

“Skipped kindergarten actually. Must be where all my faults stem from. I don’t share. Well…” Sookie’s eyes wandered to Preston for a moment. “I don’t share my Jack, at least.”

The tension was thick in the air and eyes were volleying back and forth between the two. Preston paled considerably and his eyes darted rapidly around the room.

“What-uh…what are you talking about there, Sook?” The innocent quality Preston was going for was falling woefully short.

“Oh please Pardloe. You really think that I think that I’m the only girl you’re fucking?” Sookie’s face broke out into a huge maniacal grin. “You do! Oh you poor baby.”

“Wait, what? I-uh…”

“Oh, save it Pardloe. We never said we were exclusive. You can fuck whoever your little whoreish heart desires. Just like I can.”

“So you’re fucking other guys, then? I though-I-there’s other guys, really?” Preston dragged Sookie off her bar stool and lead her a few feet away, lowering his voice and putting his head down.

“And girls.” A crash sounded at the ‘bar’ as Quinn knocked over a bottle of schnapps. Alcide and Trey’s faces were rapidly turning puce and Eric had spun quickly away, gripping the stool in front of him-for support, it looked like. “You’re my best friend, dude. Why on earth would you think I’d be faithful, but you could fuck around?”

The ever reddening of Preston’s face as he followed the waving of Sookie’s hand as she spoke was causing Quinn to choke on repressed laughter. Without another word, Preston spun around and after a brief struggle to get the door open, disappeared from sight.

“Well. Fuck.” Sookie returned to her bar stool. “Are you shit heads fucking retarded? Get on with it. I have a beer pong game to win.”

Alcide shrugged and muttered something about “cocky bitches” under his breath before lining up a shot and letting the small yellow ball fly.

Eric, on the other hand, still look paralyzed.

“Hey, Thor! Don’t make me hurt you again.”

The resulting snap to attention and sloppy splashing as his ball landed squarely in Alcide’s cup had Sookie cackling.

“He’ll be fine. Just a shock to his system. He thinks I’m some poor, stupid damsel in distress or something. He’ll get over it.” Her casual dismissal belied the small furrow between her eyebrows.

“If you say so, Princess.” Quinn launched his ball just as Sookie’s foot connected with his ass. The gathered masses barked out laughter and Quinn flushed a bright ruby red.

Eric took his shot-the last shot-and landed the ball squarely in his opponent’s cup. Alcide and Trey chuckled at Quinn’s pout.

“Oh please, like you could handle a body shot from her. You’d stroke out.” Claude pointed out, sneering at his friend.

“Oh, like you’d be any better, pretty boy?”

Eric launched himself into the middle of the building tension. “So. My choice, huh?”

His blue eyes smoldered as he stalked forward lazily, though Sookie was happy to note he was still limping a bit from her ‘re-education’.

His arms, large yet lean with strongly corded muscles, braced themselves on the sides of the bar stool as he invaded her personal space. Sookie held her own, nearly touching her forehead to his as he glanced down subtly.

“I think,” he said, lifting a hand and trailing a fingertip along the neckline of her shirt, “I choose…here.”

Love it!
Geez boys can be stooopid. You don’t get with a tomboy and dick around and think you are going to get away with it.
Loved Sookie’s lesson for Eric :)
Body shots huh?
This could get interesting fast :)